[The reader must have remarked, that the various editions of the
proceedings at this meeting were given in the public papers with
rather more than usual inaccuracy. The cause of this was no ill-
timed delicacy on the part of the gentlemen of the press to assert
their privilege of universal presence wherever a few are met
together, and to commit to the public prints whatever may then and
there pass of the most private nature. But very unusual and
arbitrary methods were resorted to on the present occasion to
prevent the reporters using a right which is generally conceded to
them by almost all meetings, whether of a political or commercial
description. Our own reporter, indeed, was bold enough to secrete
himself under the Secretary's table, and was not discovered till
the meeting was well-nigh over. We are sorry to say, he suffered
much in person from fists and toes, and two or three principal
pages were torn out of his note-book, which occasions his report
to break off abruptly. We cannot but consider this behaviour as
more particularly illiberal on the part of men who are themselves
a kind of gentlemen of the press; and they ought to consider
themselves as fortunate that the misused reporter has sought no
other vengeance than from the tone of acidity with which he has
seasoned his account of their proceedings.--_Edinburgh
Newspaper_.]
A meeting of the gentlemen and others interested in the celebrated
publications called the Waverley Novels, having been called by
public advertisement, the same was respectably attended by various
literary characters of eminence. And it being in the first place
understood that individuals were to be denominated by the names
assigned to them in the publications in question, the Eidolon, or
image of the author, was unanimously called to the chair, and
Jonathan Oldbuck, Esq. of Monkbarns, was requested to act as
Secretary.
The Preses then addressed the meeting to the following purpose:--
"Gentlemen, I need scarcely remind you, that we have a joint
interest in the valuable property which has accumulated under our
common labours. While the public have been idly engaged in
ascribing to one individual or another the immense mass of various
matter, which the labours of many had accumulated, you, gentlemen,
well know, that every person in this numerous assembly has had his
share in the honours and profits of our common success. It is,
indeed, to me a mystery, how the sharp-sighted could suppose so
huge a mass of sense and nonsense, jest and earnest, humorous and
pathetic, good, bad, and indifferent, amounting to scores of
volumes, could be the work of one hand, when we know the doctrine
so well laid down by the immortal Adam Smith, concerning the
division of labour. Were those who entertained an opinion so
strange, not wise enough to know, that it requires twenty pairs of
hands to make a thing so trifling as a pin--twenty couple of dogs
to kill an animal so insignificant as a fox?--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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